By the Mediterranean — & great lunch

Another special day – teeny dampener being a constant runny nose from the incessant hay fever — and I have one Polaramine left.

Today was a break from visiting sites that were in a real sense “holy”. Checking out from or Nazareth base of the past two days we set off for the Mediterranean coast – to the old city of Akko (Accre) where we explored excavated ruins and underground tunnels dating back to the times of the crusades. Really enjoyed this – our foot journey took us out to a street with a great frontage to the Mediterranean. We enjoyed freshly squeezed orange juice.

From there we drove through Haifa before lunching at this amazing arabic roadside restaurant. Nothing flash from the outside but we had an absolute feast. Plate after plate of various Middle Eastern salads, fresh hummus (I finally like the stuff) and magnificent freshly baked flatbread — and that was all before main course! What a treat!

After this we drove south toasted Tel Aviv, stopping at Caesarea and the spread-out ruined of ancient Roman fortress, palace fr Herod, Hippodrome, ampitheatre and more right by the sea – very impressive! Even managed to dip my feet int the Mediterranean.

On to Jericho where we’re staying at a really nice hotel in the mddle of the desert and a great view from our 9th floor room. Glad we’re actually staying, for on arrival, reception had no record f us coming. Oops! So we all lined up for coffees ad drinks at the bar.

I’ve surprised myself how naive I’d been in appreciating how ‘Arabic’ so much of the Holy Land is. Of all the major cities we will have visited by tour end – Amman, Bethehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth and Jericho – the only one significantly Jewish will ave been Jerusalem, and even then – West Jerusalem. This tour has been SUCH an eyeopener!

Before dinner at our hotel , many of us enjoyed a really nice soak in the spa as well as a ‘float’ in a pool filed with Dead Sea water. A weird experience – as will be the Turkish bath I’m consdering for tomorrow; our final full day.